Assessment
From e-Learning Documentation
Overview
There are two online testing tools in Sakai, Assessments and Tests & Quizzes. You may choose whichever of these tools best meets your needs. In general, Tests & Quizzes offers more function than Assessments, but many people find the Assessments tool more intuitive and easier to use.
The two tools are very different in their approach to online testing.
Assessments REQUIRES the use of Question Pools and those Question Pools MUST be structured in a specific way. Question Pools must contain questions of the same point value and difficulty level. This is a good practice and a helpful way to set up your Question Pools, resulting in a very nicely organized collection of Question Pools. Assessments also has an easy process for assigning an assessment to special needs students that need added time, but there is no option to assign an assessment to a group.
Assessments also offers the option to require students to acknowledge the Honor Pledge before they can submit the assessment. Certain question types, Multiple Choice, True/False, and Essay, can be imported into Assessment from Respondus. Question Pools can be imported from Tests & Quizzes into Assessments.
Probably the biggest limitation of Assessments is that once an assessment has been accessed, even by a Test Drive, that Assessment cannot be edited or deleted. It can only be archived.
Tests & Quizzes offers Question Pools, but does not require their use. You may enter questions directly into an assessment without those questions being assigned to a Question Pool. You can have questions of varied difficulty levels and point values in one Question Pool. You can create Sub-Pools within Question Pools to further aid organization. Question Pools in Tests & Quizzes are associated with the creator's Username, not the course in which the pools were created. So if you are instructor for ABC1234 and CBA4321 and you create five Question Pools in ABC1234, you will also see those five pools when you go to your CBA4321 course. This is helpful in that you always have access to your Question Pools, but it requires you to pay attention to naming conventions. You would not want to name a Question Pool "Exam 1."
Tests & Quizzes offers the added security of limiting an assessment to a specific IP address, or group of IP addresses. You have the ability to show students the statistics on an assessment and individual questions within the assessment. Questions can only be entered manually, or by cutting and pasting a properly formatted text document. An assessment in Tests & Quizzes can be assigned to a group. You can edit many aspects of a published assessment, including the ability to edit a question and regrade the assessment.
Create and Manage Question Pools in Assessments
As noted above, Question Pools are required in Assessments. You must create Question Pools before you may create an assessment.
Create a Question Pool in Assessments
From within the course where you want to create a Question Pool:
- Click Assessments in the left menu bar.
- At the top of the Assessments page, click Question Pools
- Click Add Pool
- "Pool Title" - enter a descriptive title for this Question Pool
- "Description" - you may enter a description of this pool if desired. The Content Editor is available if you want to format this text.
- "Point Value" - you must enter a Point Value that will be applied to every question in this Question Pool. It is not possible to have questions with different point values in the same Question Pool.
- "Difficulty" - select the difficulty level of the questions in this Question Pool. It is not possible to hvae questions with different difficulty levels in the same Question Pool.
- Click Done
Add Questions to a Question Pool in Assessments
When the Question Pool is created, you are taken to a screen that allows questions to be added. If you want to add questions to a Question Pool that was previously created, access this screen by clicking Assessments > Question Pools > Hyperlinked Name of Question Pool.
- Click Add Question
- Select Question Type
- Click OK
- Each question type provides instructions for creating that type of question on the question creation screen.
- Click Done
Import a Question Pool in Assessments
You may import a properly formatted text document of questions. This process creates a new Question Pool.
Proper Format for Importing Questions into Assessments
- Using Wordpad or other plain text editor, enter tests questions using the proper format:
=Multiple Choice - Single Correct Answer
1. Who is president of the United States?
- a. Barrack Obama
b. Hillary Clinton c. John McCain d. Joe Biden
- From within the Question Pool screen (Assessments > Question Pools) click Import
- Select "Paste Questions & Import"
- Copy the text from your document and paste it in the box provided in Sakai. Make sure that there is a space between each question.
- Click OK
If the import was successful a new question pool was created. The newly created Question Pool will be untitled and not have points associated with it. The difficulty level will be at the default, "Level 3." To edit the Question Pool details, click on the "Edit Tool"
icon beside the name of the Question Pool. On this screen you are able to rename the Question Pool, provide a Description if desired, enter the Point Value and adjust the Difficulty Level.
